The rules below apply to all GoPets Addicts forums. Any post in violation of the forum rules is subject to removal. Repeated disregard of forum policies will result in disciplinary action.

Flaming and Trolling: No personal attacks or flaming. This includes, but is not limited to: insulting others for their comments and ideas, language skills, age, sex and religious beliefs. Do not post inflammatory remarks with the intention of provoking or angering other members. Destructive messages will not be tolerated. You are free to express your opinion within our guidelines, but please be aware of how you post your message, not simply what you post.

Language: No profanity or obscene language. GoPets Addicts is an all-ages service, and you should post accordingly. If you have any doubts whether a particular statement might be considered offensive to others, please do not post it.

Explicit Content: Explicit content of a sexual or violent nature is not permitted. This includes, but is not limited to, graphic images, or links to sites containing such content.

Illegal Drugs or Activities: Content pertaining to illegal drugs or drug related activities is not permitted. This includes, but is not limited to, graphic images, or links to sites containing such content.

Derogatory Remarks/Slurs: No offensive racial or sexist remarks. Do not make offensive slurs regarding anyone's religious, sexual, political, ancestral heritage, or racial status. This includes either direct/indirect insults or accusations.

Spamming: Spamming is not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to: comments not contributing to the board, advertisements, double/cross posts, posting for the sake of getting your post count up, and messages posted repeatedly. Threads which promote and encourage other members to spam are also not allowed. Thread Bumping: No excessive bumping. Within reason, the occasional bump is acceptable - but repeated bumping is merely annoying to other users. Perhaps your topic just wasn't that interesting.

All Caps: CAPITALIZING YOUR POST, SUBJECT, OR EVEN JUST WORDS IS CONSIDERED YELLING. JUST AS IT IS IN REAL LIFE, YELLING IS RUDE. PLEASE REFRAIN FROM DOING THIS. SEE HOW ANNOYING IT IS?!?

Images: Screenshots or any other images posted should be no larger than 1024 pixels wide and 768 pixels high, as well as no larger than 500 kilobytes. Any images that are considered too big will be removed. If you want to post anything larger, please link to it with an external URL.

Privacy: Private matters between users are just that; private. We will not tolerate users creating boards or posts that have to do with private matters.

To report any violation of these guidelines, please PM (private message) a moderator or admin.

Disclaimer: GoPets Addicts reserves the right to add, modify, or remove any of these rules at any time. Rule changes apply to past, present and future posts.

Last edited by admin on Sun Oct 11, 2009 5:35 pm; edited 1 time in total

Size: Avatars are beneficial as a means of identifying yourself. However when they are too large, they stretch the forums and make posts too small or unnecessarily make a short post too tall.

Avatars may not be larger than 100 pixels by 100 pixels. If your avatar exceeds this size, you will be asked by the moderators to resize it within guidelines. Failure to comply with the request in a timely manner will result in the removal of your avatar. Extremely large avatars may be removed immediately.

Content: GoPets Addicts promotes a family-friendly atmosphere. Please use proper judgment when choosing your avatar and adhere to forum rules. If you avatar is deemed unacceptable by forum guidelines you will be asked to change it. Failure to comply with the request will result in the removal of your avatar. Forum administrators reserve the right to remove avatars immediately if deemed completely inappropriate, and a warning or banning may also be made.

Signatures:

Size: The reason for signature limits is to keep the focus on what people are saying. When the signatures get to be larger then what people are posting, important information gets lost.

Forum signatures may contain images, but may not be any larger than 500 pixels wide in their entirety, with one line of small text. If your signature is larger than the allotted size you will be asked by the moderators to resize it within guidelines. Failure to comply with such a request will result in the removal of your signature.

Content: GoPets Addicts promotes a family-friendly atmosphere. Please use proper judgment when designing your signature and adhere to forum rules. If you signature is deemed unacceptable by forum guidelines you will be asked to change it. Failure to comply with the request will result in the removal of your signature. Forum administrators reserve the right to remove signature content immediately if deemed inappropriate, and a warning or banning may also be made.

* Avatars and signatures can be deleted by the forum admins at their own discretion at any time.

Last edited by admin on Sun Oct 11, 2009 5:35 pm; edited 1 time in total

GoPets Addicts reserves the right to ban individuals from posting without warning, depending on the severity of the offense. In most cases, a general, public warning and/or reminder may be issued to all posters. If that fails to correct the problem, a warning may be issued to the specific offender(s) via a private message. Banning, when appropriate, may or may not be permanent, depending on the severity of the offense and the discretion of the forum administrators.

A user will receive no more than 3 warnings before they are banned for a time set by the moderators. After the ban has been lifted, they will be on probation for no less than 90 days. If a user receives a warning during this time, they will immediately be permanently IP banned from the forums.

Banned users are not allowed to make a new forum account. Doing so will result in a more severe consequence, such as an IP banning. Under no circumstances can it be discussed on the forums but all banned users are free to contact support.

If you directly disobey a warning, you may be subject to a banning.

** In addition, non-banned users are not allowed to post for banned users. If this occurs, the post will be removed and the non-banned user will be given a warning.

Under no circumstances can it be discussed publicly on the forums. This is a private matter and must be resolved as such.

Expectations and Responsibilities of our Moderators: Generally, moderators have a twofold responsibility:

* Ensure that members are following the community rules * Foster lively discussion

A good moderator ensures that the forums are inviting, active, and an asset to the GoPets Addicts community as a whole. The main purpose of moderation is to prevent inappropriate posts to the forums. This may involve moving posts to a more appropriate forum, or occasionally editing or deleting posts. Moderators have been extended this ability to edit, move, or delete inappropriate threads.

We strongly believe in respecting others' opinions. Remember that we're dealing with people from all over the globe, with all kinds of differing experiences, abilities, and points of view. Moderation should not be used to censor unpopular viewpoints, or those that the moderator simply disagrees with.

Reporting a Moderator:If you feel a moderator has overstepped their bounds, or if you disagree with an action taken and cannot resolve it after talking it over with a moderator, you may contact Admin

Usually spam/ads by bots can be determined by the following conditions:

- The post count of the member posting is fairly small. Usually just one posting. - The ID of the member posting is long or contains words that some players might find controversial. - The content of the posting contains links to other sites. - The content of the posting and/or the title contains material that is unwelcome in the GoPets Addicts forum.

The best thing to do is to PM a moderator. Please PM the link to the spam thread to the moderators.

The more moderators you PM about the offending post, the faster someone will be able to delete the spam. Please do not reply to the spam! Just send the link to us and we'll take care of it.

Do not attempt to bump the spam to the second page and do not create another topic regarding the spam. Many of our moderators receive emails when they are PM'd, so even if they are not on the forums at the time, they will still be alerted and take care of it.

Even if you are unsure about a thread, we ask you to PM us. We want to be safe, not sorry!

With your help, we can keep the forums clean and safe for all our users.